Someone Like Me
by Joseph Laban
Summary: Princess Vanellope von Schweetz had a perfect life. As ruler of a racing game, everything she could ever want was programmed into her backstory and the world around her. But there was one thing no video game developer could have given her. A retelling of turbomun's 'Ghost Boy' and Turbotastique's 'How Turbo has gotten a kingdom' from her Royal Highness' point of view.


_A/N: This work is based on the fanfiction 'Ghost Boy' by turbomun and the DeviantArt comic series 'How Turbo has gotten a kingdom!' by Turbotastique. I strongly recommend that you check out their work and give them some love. Many thanks to both of these amazing people who have graciously allowed me to use their works in the writing of this fic. Peace out!_

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Hiya there! My name's Vanellope von Schweetz, president of Sugar Rush. I know it's hard to believe, but little ol' me's the ruler and pro-ta-GO-nist (is that how ya say it, Ralph?) of my very own racing game. Now let's see, where do I begin? Oh, yeah – I live in Litwak's Arcade with my bestest friends Wreck-It Ralph, Fix-It Felix, and his wife, Sergeant Calhoun. In fact, some would call us family. I love 'em all to bits and I'll never let 'em go!

Now, ya see, the reason why I'm telling ya all this is 'cause recently, like, a few months ago, something _really_ important and amazing happened to me. Something so hard to believe, that they oughta make a movie outta it! I'm about to tell y'all the story of my life and of one special person… let's just call 'im 'PJ' for now, okay?

Okay, now I can begin. Ya see, the first thing I can remember is being this beautiful princess of a faraway land made completely outta candies and sweets. I don't really know why I say it's 'faraway', given that I, ya know, actually _live_ in it – but just follow me while I tell my story, okay? So I'm this pretty princess – what _is_ it with little girls and princesses, anyway? I live in a giant castle with my lil' friend and assistant, Sour Bill, who's always pretty glum but tries ta do what's right. And then there are my friends! My subjects, really, but they're all nine-year-old racers like me, so whatever! Taffyta, Gloyd and Candlehead; Rancis, Crumbelina and Adorabeezle; Minty, Jubileena, Snowanna and Swizzle; Torvald, Sticky, Citrusella and Nougetsia! The fifteen of us live together and race together; and every day nine of us take our turns letting players jump into our bodies and race all around my kingdom! It's Turbo-Tasti… wait, did I actually say that out loud? Sorry, sorry, back up; forget I said anything! Spoilers!

So anyway, that's how life was for me. At least, that's the way it was _supposed_ to be. Remember how I said earlier that I remembered being a princess? Well, plot twist – _I lied_. I really _don't_ remember that at all! Instead, that memory was nothing more than my programming, my premade backstory, if you will. My first _real_ memory was King Candy. He was a little old man, with a purple coat and a bald head. He looked like there was something really funny goin' on all the time – he was always chucklin' and throwin' out candy most of the time. Everyone in Sugar Rush loved him. And at first, I suppose I did, too.

But that didn't last. For some reason, he always seemed to be mad at me. I never knew what it was I did wrong; but he always got upset whenever it seemed like I was gonna race. Even if I was spotted hangin' around the track whenever there was a race, he would quickly send out Wynchell and Duncan, our donut policemen, to chase me away. I quickly wised up that I wasn't welcome in my own game and that no one wanted to be my friend.

I remember the day when King Candy captured me for the first time. He locked me up in a little cage and told me I was a _glitch_, a mere program's mistake of the game. He told me that I was a danger to everyone and that I would _never_ be allowed to race because I'd cause the game to be unplugged. I refused to believe him. Somehow, I knew I was a racer, I could _feel_ it in my code. And there was nothin' he could say to me that could change that.

I don't really know how I escaped, though it musta had somethin' to do with my glitch. Anyway, I learned to always stay away from King Candy. I tried to make friends with the other racers, 'cause even if I couldn't race, at least I could watch the others, right? _Wrong!_ Thanks to King Candy, they all hated me too! Taffyta seemed to have it out for me the most; as King Candy's favorite, she took particular glee in enforcing his decrees.

I betcha think that bein' unable to race or leave the game for fifteen years would be a total nightmare. And it _was!_ However, the programmers did do me _one_ small favour: Sugar Rush is _huge_. It's, like, a bajillion times bigger than an old game like Fix-It Felix Jr.. With nothin' else to do, I spent my time explorin' every last square inch of the game and climbin' every tree and mountain. Also, everythin' in the game is, like, made outta delicious candy and I could eat as much of anythin' I wanted without gainin' weight or havin' to brush my teeth… what's that, Felix? Oh… right, my bad.

Ahem, sorry about that, everyone! Felix just reminded me that I shouldn't be sayin' things like that. Ever since he and the sarge moved in, they've been makin' sure that I eat healthy, observe good oral hygiene and go to bed early. As President, I need to set a good example for my subjects. So… listen to your Mom and Dad and eat your green vegetables, kids!

All right, so where was I…? Ah, yes, now I remember. I spent my time explorin' every hidden nook and cranny of the game. I'm pretty sure I musta found every single Easter egg hidden by the programmers over fifteen years. And now that's turned out pretty good, since I'm the President and I'm supposed to know the in-tri-ca-SEES of my own game… gah, _spelling_!

Anyway, one day I was resting on a candy cane tree branch in one of my favourite groves, when I suddenly saw a stranger for the first time! That was unusual, as no one ever visited Sugar Rush from Game Central Station. 'Twas another of King Candy's stupid rules, I guess.

This stranger was dressed in filthy overalls and was climbin' my tree for some reason. I immediately started talkin' to him, and found out his name was Wreck-It Ralph. He claimed to be from the 'Candy Tree Department', but surprise, surprise, there was no one else with him.

I quickly figured he was a liar, 'cause he didn't even know that double-striped branches _break_! G'_doy!_ I then asked why his hands were so freakishly big, and he just told me to stop bein' annoyin'. As if I ever could! _Bwahahaha!_

And then I saw it. The thing he was climbin' the tree for. A golden medal! I immediately thought of usin' it to enter the day's Random Roster Race, as I didn't have any coins. So I swiped it from Ralph and tossed it into the Winner's Cup and _ta-dah!_ I was in the Random Roster Race! I couldn't stop squealin', I was so excited!

Of course, lots of things happened between that moment and me actually, ya know, _racin'_ that evenin'. I gotta know Ralph a lot better, he agreed to help me out, and together, we made my very first kart! The one I love and adore! _Mwah, mwah, mwah!_ Oh, thank you, _thank you_ Ralphie! You're the greatest hero this arcade's ever seen!

Together, we taught me howta drive, and I got really good at it _really_ quickly. Ralph says I'm a natural, and given what I know now, that's absolutely true! I _am_ a real racer! _Vroom, vroom_, watch out world, 'cause I'm comin' for ya!

So there I was, on the track with the other racers for the first time ever! It was _amazin'! _Zoom, zoom, I was passin' them so quickly, they never knew what hit 'em! That is, until I caught up to Taffyta. Boy, was she _mad!_ She tried to get Candlehead to cherry bomb me right off the birthday cake, when suddenly, _glitch glitch_, I disappeared and reappeared in front of 'em! They screamed like they'd seen a ghost, and I pulled away ahead of them. _Phew! That was a close one, _I thought, and I told myself no more glitchin' for the rest of the race.

I kept on racin', and eventually I saw the back of King Candy's kart up ahead of me. _At last!_ I said to myself. _Time to show his royal Highness what I can do! _**Heads up, **_**Poofypants!**_

We were in the Ice Cream Mountains by then, and though the sugar snow I powerslid and zoomed right past him. _Vrrooom!_ I'm telling ya, you oughta have seen his _face_!

Even then, I meant him no harm; 'twas all in good fun and ribbing. I simply wanted to show _everyone_ that I _could_ race and do _everything_ they could without any problems. Surely, I thought, _now_ he'll realise the error of his ways and allow me to race!

That's not what happened. As I raced through a dark tunnel, he took a short cut and rammed his kart right into mine, trying to run me off the track! I screamed. I couldn't believe it - surely he couldn't be _this_ sore a loser, riskin' both our lives in the middle of a race! "What are you - _crazy_?!" I cried, tryin' to knock some sense back into him.

He didn't back off. Instead, he took out a long pointy stick from his kart and began swingin' it right at me! "I _forbid_ you… to _cross_… that _finish line_!" he yelled.

I tell ya, I'd never been more terrified of anythin' in my life. I was sure we'd both crash into something soon if he didn't knock it off. Somehow, I managed to grab hold of his stick, and tried to wrestle it outta his hands so he couldn't hit me anymore.

I must have been glitchin' outta control, 'cause _he_ suddenly began to glitch too! That sorta thing often happened to people who touched me when I glitched.

I didn't have time to worry about what he was gonna do to me once the race was over, since I'd accidentally turned him into a glitch and all, when something unbelievable happened. Instead of merely glitchin', he was _morphin'_! Into somethin' white and red… into a _completely different character!_

"_What the…?"_ I cried. "Who _are_ you?!"

"I'm _**Turbo**_!" he snarled, with the most terrifying grin I've ever seen. "The greatest racer _ever!_ And I did not reprogram this world to let _you_ and that halitosis-riddled warthog _take it away from me!_"

He jumped back into his kart and floored the gas pedal. _"Turbo-Tastic!"_ he cackled. My kart tipped over onto its side, and I realized that he wanted to ram me directly into a pillar of rock up ahead.

"_End of the line, glitch!"_ he growled.

In that moment, it hit me. I _was_ a glitch! I had _always_ been one! And that was not a problem - it was a _superpower!_ I had escaped from King Candy before by glitching - and now it was time to do it _intentionally_.

I focused… concentrated… and _glitched!_

_Zap!_ My kart and I vanished and reappeared several yards down the track, safely away from the rock and from King Candy. I took one final look at 'im, and then I floored the gas and went zooming straight for the finish line.

What happened next, I don't have time to tell ya. Ralph knows that story better than I do, 'cause he was actually _there_ to witness everythin'. Let's just say that it involved giant Cy-Bugs, Mentos and Diet Cola.

Anyway, I eventually crossed the finish line with Ralph, and _voila_, all my memories as the Princess of Sugar Rush were restored. It was hysterical. _Everyone's_ memories were restored too, and Taffyta and all the other racers started cryin' and begging me for mercy. _Of course_ I obliged. 'Cause if I killed 'em all for revenge, who the Hack would I race with? And besides, I didn't go fifteen years without any friends just to kill 'em when I finally got them. So everyone patched things up and lived happily ever after.

_...NOT!_ After everythin' had quieted down and I had time to think, I began to wonder about that creepy weirdo in the tunnel - Turbo. Who _was_ that maniac, and why did he wanna kill me so bad?

From what I could see, it was clear that he didn't belong to Sugar Rush at all. He had a special jumpsuit on of the kind typically worn by asphalt or dirt racers, which was miles away from the candy-themed outfits we Sugar Rush racers wore.

Man, when _that_ sunk in for me, I was _outraged_. All those years, he had pretended that I was never meant to be part of the game, when in fact, _he_ was the intruder all along?!

And then there was one other thing Ralph had told me before the race: King Candy had tried to delete my code, and if I crossed the finish line, everything would be reset and I wouldn't be a glitch anymore. So _that_ was why he never allowed me to race – he wanted to stay king forever! All that nonsense as to why it was for my own good and the good of the game – _Bull. Roar_. _He_ was the only one with anythin' to lose!

I'm telling ya, just _thinking_ about it made my blood boil. All the misery and bullyin' I had experienced for a decade-and-a-half – 'twas all to feed the ego of some game-jumping _freak?!_

Worst of all, that sicko was nowhere to be found. Ralph told me that the creep had turned into a Cy-Bug and attempted to eat him alive. Fortunately for everyone, my hero collapsed all the Mentos into the Diet Cola, which erupted and burned all the Cy-Bugs alive, _including_ Turbo.

_Good riddance__, moron,_ I thought, when I heard the tale. I hoped that jerk had felt every bit of the lava as he disintegrated. Still, part of me regretted that he hadn't stayed around to face the music for what he had done. I mean, there were so many punishments we could've dished out to him: locked 'im up in the Fungeon (which _he_ had built, by the way), dunked 'im in the lava a few more times, or best of all, turned _him_ into a glitch and forbidden him from racing! Let's see how _he_ liked it!

Nevertheless, I couldn't complain. Ralph and Felix had told me the entire history of Turbo, about how he had destroyed _two_ racing games out of jealousy. They also explained to me that if we died outside our own games, like he did, we wouldn't regenerate, ever. Frankly, I was kinda relieved to hear it. Even though I wasn't there to witness his gruesome demise, I was glad that he wouldn't be able to infect any more games in the arcade.

Right…? _WRONG!_ That mean ol' virus had been one step ahead of us the entire time! Ya see, he knew a super-secret cheat code that gave 'im _thirty_ extra lives within the game! As long as he stayed in Sugar Rush, he wouldn't be able to die for a _really_ long time! _Spoilsport._

Unbeknownst to everyone, he had quietly regenerated and slipped away to another game to plot his revenge. But we didn't see 'im again until about nine months later.

I can still remember that evening. It was dinnertime. Felix and Sgt. Calhoun had just gotten married and were livin' in the castle with me and Ralph. All of a sudden, BOOM! King Candy reappeared in the body of a wizard he'd stolen, and tried to destroy all of us! Ralph and the sarge fought 'im off, but it was clear we were no match for him. I scurried off to the code vault, knowin' there was only one thing to do.

Once I got in, I swam directly over to his code. It wasn't hard to find – it was, like, ten times larger than any of the others and clearly labelled 'KING CANDY'. I then did something I'm not really proud of: I began pullin' out all the wires that went into and came outta his code.

'Twas a savage moment. A game character's code's their life, ya see – ya mess with that and ya mess with their very self. Ralph had told me that King Candy had ripped out my code when he first came to Sugar Rush, making me a glitch for life. Even though I'm back to being ruler of the game, the glitch he created in my code remains and'll never go away. Not that I _want_ it to, but I digress.

Anyway, there I was, doing the exact same thing to him that he had done to me. In my defense, if I hadn't done it, he'd be impossible to beat and would've just come back later. Still, it made me feel like a murderer. Don't believe me? Try sticking a knife into your childhood abuser and tell me how it feels, you _sicko!_

When 'twas all done, King Candy's code was a flickerin', sparkin' piece of broken programming. I couldn't bear to look at what I'd done. I swam the Hack out of there and ran straight to Ralph, who picked me up and patted me on the back. I told him everything, and he tried to make me not feel guilty, but I still felt awful. Ralph's a wrecker – destroying things is what he does for a living. How could he understand what it's like for a child like me to _kill_ someone?

Fortunately, Felix was there and he had an idea. He sat me down and told me about Turbo. Like Ralph, Felix was there right from the start, when the arcade first opened. He saw Turbo back when his game was still plugged in and he was a racer just like me.

Felix told me that Turbo used to be the most popular racer in the arcade, and that the players would line up for hours just to have a go playing as him. He told me what Turbo Time was like, and how different it was from the Sugar Rush I'd always known. Somehow, hearing Felix's story about a long-ago time and a faraway place stirred a sense of longing within me. Even though _I'm_ the fairytale princess who lives in a storybook castle, I suddenly _wanted_ to be able to see the world that my worst enemy had come from. I mean, wouldn't _you_ like to see the Space Invaders' home planet?

Eventually, Felix pitched me a revolutionary idea. What if we erased Turbo's memories and reprogrammed him to be a Sugar Rush racer? Giving homeless characters jobs in new games had kinda become standard practice since Ralph came back from his first adventure in Sugar Rush, but _this_ was something else entirely. It was one thing to take in friendly characters like Q*bert and make them part of Fix-It Felix Jr., but to rehabilitate the most notorious and destructive virus in arcade history…

I had to think – this was the most important decision of my life. I could either erase my mortal enemy from existence, or I could choose to hard-reboot him, bring him back to life, and hopefully discover someone… new? Different? I didn't know. What I _did_ know was that this was a huge gamble. If he turned out to have been evil right from the start, there was no easy way to take this back. But if he decided to make use of his second chance and turn over a new leaf once we'd reset him, then… then perhaps I'd have gained a new… _friend?_

I made my decision. _I'm the President of Sugar Rush,_ I told myself. _No one has the right to make this choice but me. _I'm_ the one he's hurt the most. _I'm_ the one who has the most reason to hate him. _I'm _the one who _should_ decide if he lives or dies. His life is in my hands. And right now, I choose… _

I took a deep breath. This was it; there was no going back now.

_I choose… to let him _**live**_._

"Alright," I told Felix at last. "Let's do it!"

"Splendid!" he said, with a huge smile on his face. "Let's go now!"

Together, we headed off to the vault to see what we could do about Turbo's code. I'm pretty sure Ralph totally lost his mind over what we were gonna do, but I wasn't going to let him stop me. I simply _had_ to see what lay beneath all the layers of Turbo's heavily-modded self. Would I find a monster… or something else? There was only one way to find out.

Felix and I spent most of that night in the vault, patching up Turbo's code, removing thirty years' worth of bad memories and extracting out a whole _bunch_ of mods and skins. The guy had gone through more alterations than Michael Jackson!

Eventually, we managed to whittle his code down to a more reasonable size, but we couldn't get rid of all the malware and viruses he had accumulated over the years. His weakened code was too dependent on it; deleting it all might've killed him.

When we left the vault and returned to the castle's living quarters, we found that Ralph and Sgt. Calhoun had placed Turbo's body in one of our spare bedrooms. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully for once, and there was nothing we could do but wait for him to wake up. Anxiously, we discussed what we were gonna tell him once he did.

We all knew that his last memory was going to bed in Turbo Time thirty years ago – how in candyland were we gonna explain his current situation to him? Eventually, we decided to give him a vague story about Turbo Time being unplugged, us finding him almost dead, bringing him to Sugar Rush and offering him a job here as a bonus racer.

Things turned out to be a little more complicated than that. When he woke up, we found out that he was _glitching _too! I'm not gonna lie, I felt a pang of guilt when I saw that, as I knew exactly who was responsible for that. Still, he had made _me_ a glitch for fifteen years, so I figured it was karma that he should have a little taste of what I went through.

I'm not a meanie, though; I immediately started tryin' to teach him how to control his glitch. He had a real hard time learning how to do it, but we got 'im there in the end. We eventually had 'im racin' all 'round the Cakeway and everythin'! 'Twas… _amazing_!

One of the most surprising things I learned about 'im after his reset was that he was actually programmed to be _fifteen years old_. I mean, I'd spent my entire life thinking of him as an old man, only to find out that he was just a _teenager_… That revelation really changed the way I looked at him. I wasn't quite ready to forgive him yet, but somehow, knowing that everything he'd done to me was the work of a child rather than an adult… that made it just a little bit easier to accept.

Anyway, so we kept on training, and Turbo slowly began to adjust to life in Sugar Rush. I started to call 'im 'Pajama Boy' after the special jumpsuit he wore, and he tried to hit back by referring to me as 'glitter-graphics'. _Pffft._ As if _that _were an insult! We kept 'im hidden away from everyone in the castle, but there was one time when Gloyd, Crumbelina and Taffyta nearly caught us racin'. This might come as a shock to you, but Taffyta really grew to hate Turbo. In the months followin' my return to power, she could never speak of him except in the bitterest terms. My guess is that she felt so betrayed when she found out who King Candy really was, that she never forgave him for it.

It was a different story for me. As I spent more and more time with my former enemy, training him to control his glitch and to become a real racer again, I found myself growing closer and closer to him. I saw how enthusiastic he was about his work, and how he would never give up trying, no matter what. I had to admit, I _liked_ what I saw in him! In so many ways, he reminded me of myself. Before long, we had become such close friends that even Ralph began to notice and call me out on it.

What could I say? It wasn't every day that I got to hang out with the lead character of another racing game – but that was quickly becoming the case. We spent nearly every day together for a month, and before long, Turbo was ready to enter his first Random Roster Race.

It was a total disaster. When Turbo threw in his coin to join the race, lo and behold, _King Candy's_ name went up on the board! Up till then, we'd kept his past a secret from 'im, but now we had no choice but to tell 'im the full truth. He didn't take it well. He kept insistin' that we were lyin' and refused to believe us until we showed him the actual footage from my first RRR. The next thing we knew, he had taken off runnin' to who-knows-where.

I eventually found 'im at the entrance to the game, tryin' to escape. To my horror, I found that he'd reverted to his old self: murderous evil virus and all. I tried to reason with him, to bring back the Pajama Boy I'd come to know over the past month. The malware we'd left in his code had taken over 'im, and made 'im push me right off the bridge! Fortunately, the real Turbo regained control of himself just in time and pulled me back up.

By then, I could tell that he was _really_ sorry about everything he'd done. He cried himself to sleep that night, and I curled up beside him to try to make him feel better. To be honest, I had never in a billion years ever dreamed that I would be tryin' to comfort _Turbo_ in bed for any reason, but there I was. For a moment, it felt like I was his big sister and he was my little baby brother. And it was a nice feeling, even though we were both really sad.

Eventually, though, all dreams have to come to an end; and the very next morning, Turbo and I had to deal with the fallout of everything that had happened. Taffyta and all the other racers were swamping me, demanding to know why Turbo was here and why he was back. I tried my best to explain the whole situation to them, how Turbo had come back and had his mind wiped and been training to become a Sugar Rush racer and so on. Still, they could hardly believe what I was telling them, and I'm pretty sure that some, if not all of them, thought I'd gone insane.

I didn't care. I _had_ to get to Turbo and convince them all that he wasn't going to hurt anyone anymore. Eventually, Taffyta, Rancis and Candlehead broke away from the mob and walked up to Turbo.

I saw them exchange a few words (goodness knows what they said to one another) before Turbo started glitching like we normally do. I'm telling ya, my three friends _freaked out_ when they saw that! Somehow they thought that it was poetic justice that he should get what was coming to him.

I wasn't having any of it. How _dare_ they treat my new best friend that way? I marched right up to them and made them leave 'im alone. Being the president _does_ have its perks, I'll say!

To cheer Turbo up, the two of us went on a lil' walk 'round the raceway together. Just as we were about to start having fun again, the unimaginable happened. The King Candy persona suddenly returned and _ripped_ its way out of Turbo's body! Somehow, the malware and viruses we'd left behind when we'd reset him had grown a mind of its own and was now takin' the King Candy skin for a drive.

The two of us might've been killed right there and then, if good ol' Ralph hadn't had the good sense to come looking for us. Although he saved us from King Candy, he couldn't stop the maniac from gettin' away. Now the whole arcade was in danger from the evil king once again!

This was a crisis. The grown-ups were debating what we ought to do to stop King Candy, and were asking why there'd been no warning or indication that this sorta thing was gonna happen! After all, if the AI had been inside Turbo all along, why hadn't he said anythin' about it?!

That was when Turbo stood up for the two of us. For the first time since he'd come back, he deliberately put himself in the hot seat and took some extra blame to cover for me.

Ya see, after the whole bridge incident, I'd convinced him to hush the whole thing up and not tell any of the grown-ups about it. Turbo had wanted to ask Felix some questions about the malware and his code, but I stopped him and begged him not to. I told him that if the grown-ups thought there was a chance he might turn evil again, they might panic and disable his code! Obediently, he didn't say anything to them about the time he'd almost killed me.

Until now. Despite my pleas, he revealed the full truth about the standoff on the bridge, and Ralph sternly asked him why he hadn't mentioned it to them earlier.

Before I could tell Ralph anything, Turbo stopped me. Instead of defending himself, he took full responsibility for everything that had happened so far, and asked if it really was so wrong that he had wanted to be seen as something more than a ghost boy and to be respected by everyone.

That softened Ralph's stance somewhat, and for the first time, I heard him _praise_ Turbo for having the maturity to own up to his mistakes. Since Turbo's reset, I'd never really seen either of them interact with each other on friendly terms, but now it seemed they'd finally found the common ground between them.

Anyway, so we all decided to hunt King Candy down as a family. We eventually tracked him to Hero's Duty, where he was attempting to build a new army of Cy-Bugs. Fortunately, Turbo had a few tricks up his sleeve, and he managed to force King Candy to stick to his regular form instead of fighting us as a giant Cy-Bug. Ultimately, the two of them wound up perched on a _reaaally_ high ledge, and that was where Turbo sprung his final trap.

He _glitched_ right out of King Candy's grip.

The malware-in-King-Candy's-skin plummeted dozens of stories to its doom, and I immediately rushed over to Turbo. To my horror, he was already beginning to disintegrate out of existence. He _hadn't_ brought any extra lives with him to Hero's Duty; that was essential in order to destroy the malware attached to his code. But now that it was gone, he was going to follow it to oblivion.

I screamed. I wailed. I begged him over and over to wake up, but to no avail. Turbo was dying outside his new game and there was nothin' I could do to stop it. Just a few short weeks before, I never would've imagined I'd be here, trying to bring Turbo – _King Candy! –_ back to life. He'd been my worst enemy, for Sweet's sake! He was the one who'd made my life miserable for fifteen years. He was the one who'd made me a glitch and convinced the world I was worthless. But in that moment, none of that mattered. All that mattered to me was getting my Pajama Boy back.

Suddenly, I heard frantic footsteps behind me. I turned around to see Felix dashing in with a health power-up he'd swiped from… somewhere in Hero's Duty, I think. He quickly placed it into Turbo's glitching form, and to my relief, the glitches died down and he began to breathe normally. Ralph then picked up Turbo's unconscious body and rushed 'im all the way back to Sugar Rush.

The next two days were the longest of my life. As President of Sugar Rush, I had to carry out my daily routine, go to races and manage the running of the game. But all the while, I could not stop thinking about the racer lying comatose in my spare bedroom. What if he never woke up?

I think anyone who spoke to me during those two days can tell you how choked-up and out-of-it I was. I couldn't race and all the other racers were tryin' to help me return to high spirits, but with little luck. I was totally miserable and wondered if things would ever be the same for me again.

Then all of a sudden, he was _back!_ That dumb… brainless… _inconsiderate_ Pajama Boy! Always cheatin' death and then returnin' at the most unexpected moments! _Sigh_… I guess I really _should've_ seen that comin' the third time 'round. Ya just can't keep a racer like him down for long.

Anyway, he just randomly showed up at the Random Roster Race like nothin' had ever happened to 'im, and was all like, "Yeah, glitter-graphics, you just go on ahead and finish the race! I'll still be here and I'll be racin' you tomorrow!" Although I was kinda disappointed that I still wouldn't get to race him that day, at least I knew he was alive, and that was enough for me.

After that, it was just a simple matter of introducin' Turbo to the rest of Sugar Rush and convincin' everyone that he was all right now and wouldn't be tryin' to hijack the game this time. Even if some of them weren't fully on board with the idea, what could they say? After all, most of them had joined King Candy in persecutin' me when he was king, and so they couldn't cast the first piece of rock sugar at me now.

So now Turbo's officially been part of our game for about two months, and things couldn't be better. Watchin' him now, it's plain to see why he calls himself the greatest racer ever. Even I have a hard time beatin' him in a race, which is exactly how I like it. Meanwhile, the other racers have all been uppin' their game in order to keep up with the two of us, and the players have noticed. I even heard one girl ask Mr. Litwak if he'd buffed the stats of us racers lately, and he had no answer for that! So I guess that means everyone's having a better time.

As for Turbo himself, being part of a racing game again's done him some good too. In fact, last month I saw him do something remarkable for one of the other racers. Our friend Torvald Batterbutter usually finishes in the bottom six of every race she's in, and doesn't think too highly of herself since she's essentially just Minty Zaki's palette swap. While we all try our best to ignore this and to treat the palette swaps as independent racers in their own right, deep down everyone knows that the reason why some of us look alike is that our developers were too lazy to create a new character model for them. This is a sensitive social issue that we're still working out at Litwak's Arcade.

Anyway, so Torvald has some self-confidence issues thanks to her lazy coding, and it often shows on the track. Her wins are so rare that we actually throw a party for her to celebrate every time it happens. Well, when Turbo found out about this, he held himself back to _tenth_ place in the Random Roster Race just so Torvald could make it onto the next day's roster! When I asked him about it afterwards, he simply flashed me his trademark grin and said, "Well, if a princess like you could take in a virus like me, surely the greatest can make way for the latest?"

Ah, Pajama Boy. So cocky and yet so humble, like I've always known ya to be.

So there ya have it! The tale of how 'PJ' and I got together and learned to become friends. Sometimes I sit and wonder what things would be like if life had been more 'normal'. If Turbo had never become jealous of RoadBlasters and left his game. If Ralph hadn't gotten fed up with his bad guy life and gone hunting for a medal. If Felix and Calhoun hadn't met each other.

In which case, our quirky, mismatched, and definitely-not-programmed family of five probably wouldn't be a thing today, and I'd still be the lonely princess living all by myself in my faraway fairytale castle.

Instead, thanks to an unfortunate series of events featuring scum, villainy, hostile takeovers, royal intrigue, computer viruses, dungeons, heartache, tears, stolen medals and molten lava, I now have a life that no video game developer could've ever imagined.

I have a faithful companion and hero in a man whose only job was to wreck things, but instead came in and fixed my whole world.

I have an adopted aunt and uncle who'd never have met if Ralph hadn't been so adorkably incompetent in handling monster bugs in the first place.

And then, my old royal nemesis melted away to reveal a terrified teenager underneath, looking for a place to call home.

Home. _My_ home.

My family.

Perhaps this was all how it was meant to be? Did fate, or destiny, somehow bring all of us together in order to create a marvelous new concoction?

I sometimes imagine our family as a massive dessert made out of stuff you can find in Sugar Rush: vanilla and mint chocolate chip ice-cream for me, chocolate syrup for Ralph, blueberry pie for Felix, hard green rock candy for the sarge…

…and candy canes. For Turbo.

Turbo. My Pajama Boy. The one who came back from the dead thrice for me.

Looking back now, it was obvious that King Candy should be my nemesis. Of all the people in Sugar Rush, he was the only one who could claim to be my equal. The leader of a racing game. And now that we're both glitches, I guess we're more alike than ever.

Was this what I wanted all along, from the moment my game got plugged in? To be able to relate to someone from outside my own game, who knew things about us that no one else did, to whom I could turn for comfort when the world around us didn't understand us?

Yes, I suppose this is what I've been looking for my whole life.

Someone like me.

THE END.


End file.
